MARSH-RANDALL

The ancestors of the MARSH side of our family settled primarily around the Massachusetts Bay area, from Plymouth and Hingham to Charlestown and Watertown. They were Separatists and Puritans, having left England largely to escape persecution for their religious practices.

Our RANDALL forebears were fishermen and mariners who came from northern Devonshire and Cornwall to ply their trades on the Jeffreys Bank and around the mouth of the recently discovered Piscataqua river. They were neither foes of the church nor of the king, but came on business. Ironically, history suggests they were far more tolerant than their kinsmen of the Massachusetts Bay settlements who tradition holds came seeking religious freedom.

Almost immediately upon securing dry land in the area that would become Boston, members of the Puritan groups scattered to the west and north to escape the excesses of their bretheren who, it seems, had brought the English penchant for religious oppression with them to Massachusetts. They founded settlements in Connecticut, Rhode Island, or moved on to New Hampshire and Maine where religious non-compliance was not so much of an issue.

In time, of course, the differing groups intermingled to some extent and today we are a mix of their offspring and of those who followed. But for the most part, the ancestors of the Marsh and Randall families came from similar origins for different reasons. Their genealogies are told elsewhere. These pages are mostly for images we have of our earlier generations and other graphic representations of interest, although brief stories and sketches will also be featured.

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